‘It came down like a river;’ massive storm floods roads, upends trees in St. George

By Joseph Witham, St. George News
| Posted Aug 13th, 2017 @ 9:17am

ST. GEORGE — Large, consecutive storms drenched St. George and surrounding communities, causing floods, downed trees and tipped power poles Saturday evening.

The storms initially began moving through town at around 7 p.m., at which point the St. George Fire Department was inundated with phone calls reporting damage.

“Probably had 30 different calls for service all at the same time,” St. George Fire Battalion Chief Darren Imlay said, though, fortuitously, none of those calls were to report injuries.

“It mostly hit the north end of town,” Imlay said of the storm, adding that the brunt of it hit the northeast side of the city.

Besides the torrential rainfall, high winds and lightning made the storm even more dramatic.

“We had reports of multiple trees down,” Imlay said, “multiple power poles tipping – no power poles came down – they were just tipping a little bit.”

Imlay was stationed at the intersection of 2450 East and 350 North in St. George where water from the storm flooded the road. He said at one point the water was up to his knees as it rushed down the street.